There is an insidious prejudice against older teachers.
Don’t say Columbus discovered the Americas. It erases indigenous history.
The messy link between slave owners and modern management.
Dear Governor Cuomo. I’m writing to express my incredible displeasure at Commissioner John B. King, Jr.’s decision to cancel the state sponsored PTA town hall meetings. As parents, we have legitimate concerns regarding his educational reform policies that are affecting our children.
NY charter operators freaking out over de Blasio win in New York.
Montana’s largest union, and six retirees and current employees in the Teachers’ Retirement System sued the state Friday over cost-saving cuts to their pension payments.
Every editorial, every article and interview, and every legislative session about Illinois public pension reform should begin with these statements:
The public pension systems were not and are still not the cause of the state’s budget deficits. The state’s budget deficits were triggered by past policymakers’ corruption, arrogance and irresponsibility and are currently perpetuated by some members of this General Assembly. The state’s pension debt and revenue problems need to become our legal and moral emphasis. Breaking a constitutionally-guaranteed contract with the state’s public servants is the wrong focus! To reiterate, this flagrant disregard for the State and U.S. Constitutions will not address the State’s incurred unfunded liability or its revenue problems. Glen Brown
And such an opening statement should be followed by our historical and legal comprehension that in Illlinois (especially), there will be no safeguard constitutionally or morally to prevent the pilfering, misuse, or diversion of expected or even promised funding for workers’ retirements by future members of the General Assembly, the Governor’s Office, or the Speaker’s. This has been a systemic corruption and dysfunction refusing to meet promises made, promises understood. Any reform that emerges from committee or populist will fall far short of what will be necessary to alleviate the imbalances of years of non-payment as required. The contrived political solution this year or next will never fully satisfy the funding deficits in the state, nor will the General Assembly ever look at anything significant (progressive taxation, transaction fees, amortization of past pension debt, etc,). They will need to return for more concessions, more impairments and diminisment of earned benefits; all to be performed out of necessity or the good of “all of us.”. They will take away what they already owe under the specious argument that what will be given will be less, but at least there will be something. This is the mantra they have been taught and bought to say, to believe, and to enact.